A review by hopebrasfield
The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World by Vincent Bevins

5.0

Not sure where to start. This is probably the best book I've read all year, if not the most important. 

If I wait until I've got all my notes in one place I'll never mark this book as tracked, so I'm going to save all that for my second read. Or add in to my review here once I've had time to gather myself. 

The short and long of it is the US government achieved global anticommunism using both mental  tactics (e.g., black propaganda, though there were loads of other things they were able to do--I just hadn't ever heard of that term before so it stuck out to me) and physical tactics (e.g., by directly or indirectly murdering all the communists).

Great read for learning more about how we got to where we're at. I'm thankful Vincent Bevins is using his unique abilities (he speaks like five languages, writes well, has learned how to interview extremely traumatized people with care, etc.) for good!